Government

For years, I’ve felt uncomfortable with our supposed fashionings of this nation out of mixed versions of Christianity. Those nations of rather dominant Anglican, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox versions make me feel awkward but not like my own country. Voicing such discomfort makes, at least, a few aghast. Having been raised a Baptist, trained as a pastor in the Christian Church/Churches of Christ, who later moved in with the Episcopalians and now is a reader in the Eastern Orthodox you’d think that I’d never think this, but I did even then.

From early on, I have stood with the prophet Samuel on this issue. His resisting the people’s call for a king resonates well with my discomfort over a Christian nation. Those uncomfortable with my point might comeback with, “If ‘we’ don’t strive to Christianize the United States we will fall. If we fall then we will not be able to effectively evangelize the world!” My response will be, “Why do you link our political and economic dominance with effective evangelization?”

Is that framing only because winning people to Jesus is wanted? Comfortably, I say, No! Our history is replete with grievous effects of the formal Church calling the shots. We need to let go of this. In response, I’m certain that one of the first comebacks will be, “Then you don’t want to help people find Jesus! You just want to go into hiding.” My answer is, “No, I want us to stop making converts over in our own image. I want us to stop cushioning ourselves with vast numbers of converts from the consequences of our feeble fashions of following the Risen Christ.”

I fear that the vast majority of Christians, on all sides, are like those who left Jesus when he wouldn’t feed them, heal them, or cast the Roman’s from them (Jn 6). How far down will the population of the Church fall as this country loses favor? Or suppose that the tithe ceases being a desired tax cushion.

As the Church, within this country, has receded from housing close to the majority or at least the most vocal of voters its’ power has fallen back. Rather than watching adults, who were acculturated in Christian fashions, leave we are seeing our children do that. I feel that they are living out why the masses abandoned Jesus’ following his refusal to fill empty stomachs. I then hold us, their parents, responsible because we have lived out, before them, why they shouldn’t be following Him.

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About the author

Before 1999 I was active in mental health doing assessments, emergency interventions, psychotherapy, domestic violence group treatment, and consulting in the foster care system. Rapidly, in 1999 I was lovingly shoved in disability because of temporal lobe epilepsy. Then, in June of 2001 my left temporal lobe was chucked into a trashcan. Since then, I have been playing at reconfiguring the who I had been. I just have too many spare parts still strewn across the floor.

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One Comment

” . . .our supposed fashionings of this nation out of mixed versions of Christianity.”

Supposed is right. This nation was founded on the ideas of natural law philosophy and the principles of economic self-determination, not a religion. The constitution makes the treaties signed by this country the law of the land, as binding as the constitution itself. The first treaty signed was with Tripoli and specifically states that this country was not founded on Christianity. Therefore, the non-founding on Christianity is the law of the land – a fact seldom mentioned, but easily verified. Also, the constitution bars any religious test for public office – not the mark of a state founded on a religion. Certainly some few came here for religious freedom, and some few would have liked to set up a theocracy of sorts. But most (who were not transported criminals or slaves) came here, and still do, for economic freedom, not for religious purposes. It’s unusual to find a Christian who seems to know that the country wasn’t founded on religion. Not being a believer in the supernatural myself, I am not, like you, concerned that people are turning away from your religion, but I am concerned that they, at the same time, are turning away from the good. But that’s another discussion.